Chapter 3 - The Second of the Three Spirits

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no
occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of
One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the
right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a
conference with the second messenger despatched to him through
Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he turned
uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his
curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every
one aside with his own hands; and lying down again, established
a sharp look-out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge
the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did
not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on
being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to
the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for
adventure by observing that they are good for anything from
pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite
extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and
comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge
quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to
believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange
appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros
would have astonished him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any
means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell
struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent
fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quater of an
hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his
bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy
light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the
hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a
dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or
would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at
that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion,
without having the consolation of knowing it. At last,
however, he began to think -- as you or I would have
thought at first; for it is always the person not in the
predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and
would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I say,
he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly
light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further
tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full
possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his
slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice
called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about
that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The
walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it
looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright
gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly,
mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many
little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty
blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification
of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or
for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the
floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game,
poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long
wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of
oysters, red-hot chesnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy
oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething
bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious
steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant,
glorious to see: who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike
Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on
Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though
the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet
them.

``I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,'' said the Spirit.
``Look upon me!''

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple
green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment
hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was
bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the
garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other
covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining
icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free: free as its
genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery
voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded
round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in
it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

``You have never seen the like of me before!'' exclaimed
the Spirit.

``Never,'' Scrooge made answer to it.

``Have never walked forth with the younger members of my
family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in
these later years?'' pursued the Phantom.

``I don't think I have,'' said Scrooge. ``I am afraid I
have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?''

``More than eighteen hundred,'' said the Ghost.

``A tremendous family to provide for!'' muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

``Spirit,'' said Scrooge submissively, ``conduct me
where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I
learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have
aught to teach me, let me profit by it.''

``Touch my robe!''

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters,
pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So
did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and
they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for
the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and
not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of
their houses: whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it
come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into
artificial little snow-storms.

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon
the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which
last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy
wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed
each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched
off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick
yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the
shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in
shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain
had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to
their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in
the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of
cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

For the people who were shovelling away on the housetops
were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from
the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball
-- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest
-- laughing heartily if it went right and not less
heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still
half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory.
There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chesnuts,
shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at
the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic
opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced,
broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their
growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in
wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced
demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and
apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches
of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from
conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as
they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown,
recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods,
and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves;
there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the
yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness
of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to
be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very
gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a
bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race,
appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a
fish, went gasping round and round their little
world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps
two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such
glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the
counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted
company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and
down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of
tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the
raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely
white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other
spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted
with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint
and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist
and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness
from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good
to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all
so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that
they tumbled up against each other at the door,
crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases
upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and
committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour
possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and
fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their
aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for
general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they
chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the
same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners
to the baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with
Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of
torch, for once or twice when there were angry words
between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he
shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good
humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to
quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it
was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers' were shut up; and
yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and
the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet
above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if its
stones were cooking too.

``Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from
your torch?'' asked Scrooge.

``There is. My own.''

``Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?''
asked Scrooge.

``To any kindly given. To a poor one most.''

``Why to a poor one most?'' asked Scrooge.

``Because it needs it most.''

``Spirit,'' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, ``I
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds
about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities
of innocent enjoyment.''

``I!'' cried the Spirit.

``You would deprive them of their means of dining every
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to
dine at all,'' said Scrooge. ``Wouldn't you?''

``I!'' cried the Spirit.

``You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?''
said Scrooge. ``And it comes to the same thing.''

``I seek!'' exclaimed the Spirit.

``Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name,
or at least in that of your family,'' said Scrooge.

``There are some upon this earth of yours,'' returned the
Spirit, ``who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of
passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and
selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out
kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and
charge their doings on themselves, not us.''

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible,
as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was
a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed
at the baker's), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he
could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he
stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a
supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in
any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men,
that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went,
and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the
threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless
Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch.
Think of that! Bob had but fifteen bob
a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of
his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present
blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but
poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are
cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the
cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters,
also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a
fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of
his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred
upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth,
rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to
show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller
Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that
outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for
their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage-and-onion,
these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted
Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud,
although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until
the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the
saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

``What has ever got your precious father then.'' said Mrs
Cratchit. ``And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as
late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour!''

``Here's Martha, mother!'' said a girl, appearing as she
spoke.

``Here's Martha, mother!'' cried the two young Cratchits.
``Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!''

``Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you
are!'' said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

``We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,'' replied
the girl, ``and had to clear away this morning, mother!''

``Well! Never mind so long as you are come,'' said Mrs
Cratchit. ``Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a
warm, Lord bless ye!''

``No, no! There's father coming,'' cried the two young
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. ``Hide, Martha,
hide!''

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive
of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare
clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim
upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch,
and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

``Why, where's our Martha?'' cried Bob Cratchit, looking
round.

``Not coming,'' said Mrs Cratchit.

``Not coming!'' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his
high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way
from church, and had come home rampant. ``Not coming upon
Christmas Day!''

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only
in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet
door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits
hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he
might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

``And how did little Tim behave?'' asked Mrs Cratchit,
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob
had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

``As good as gold,'' said Bob, ``and better. Somehow he
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that
he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a
cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon
Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men
see.''

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and
hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his
brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob,
turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they were
capable of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and
round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, and the
two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the
rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black
swan was a matter of course; and in truth it was something very
like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready
beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter
mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda
sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob
took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two
young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting
themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons
into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before
their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on,
and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as
Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife,
prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when
the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of
delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny
Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with
the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it
was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs
Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a
bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every
one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular,
were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the
plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the
room alone -- too nervous to bear witnesses -- to
take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should
break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over
the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry
with the goose: a supposition at which the two young
Cratchits became livid!
All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the
copper.
A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an
eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a
laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute
Mrs Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling proudly: with
the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in
half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas
holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too,
that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs
Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the
weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her
doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to
say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small
pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to
do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a
thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug
being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were
put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chesnuts on the fire.
Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob
Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob
Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass; two
tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with
beaming looks, while the chesnuts on the fire sputtered and
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

``A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!''

Which all the family re-echoed.

``God bless us every one!'' said Tiny Tim, the last of
all.

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as
if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and
dreaded that he might be taken from him.

``Spirit,'' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never
felt before, ``tell me if Tiny Tim will live.''

``I see a vacant seat,'' replied the Ghost, ``in the
poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
the child will die.''

``No, no,'' said Scrooge. ``Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he
will be spared.''

``If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none
other of my race,'' returned the Ghost, ``will find him
here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it,
and decrease the surplus population.''

Scrooge hung his head to hear his wn words quoted by the
Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

``Man,'' said the Ghost, ``if man you be in heart, not
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered
What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men
shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in
the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to
live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear
the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among
his hungry brothers in the dust!''

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast
his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on
hearing his own name.

``Mr Scrooge!'' said Bob; ``I'll give you Mr Scrooge,
the Founder of the Feast!''

``The Founder of the Feast indeed!'' cried Mrs Cratchit,
reddening. ``I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of
my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for
it.''

``My dear,'' said Bob, ``the children; Christmas
Day.''

``It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,'' said she,
``on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy,
hard, unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!''

``My dear,'' was Bob's mild answer, ``Christmas Day.''

``I'll drink his health for your sake and the
Day's,''said Mrs Cratchit, ``not for his. Long life to him.
A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry
and very happy, I have no doubt!''

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of
their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it
last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was
the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark
shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five
minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than
before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done
with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye
for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full
five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire
from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what
particular investments he should favour when he came into the
receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work
she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and
how she meant to lie a-bed to-morrow morning for a good long
rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how
she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how
the lord ``was much about as tall as Peter;'' at which Peter
pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his
head if you had been there. All this time the chesnuts and the
jug went round and round; and bye and bye they had a song,
about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim; who
had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a
handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were
far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and
Peter might have known, and very likely did, the
inside of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful,
pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of
the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them,
and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,
the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and
all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the
blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates
baking through and through before the fire, and deep red
curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.
There all the children of the house were running out into the
snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles,
aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were
shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a
group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all
chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some
near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw
them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in
a glow!

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their
way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one
was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead
of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires
half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted!
How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious
palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its
bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The
very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street
with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening
somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed: though
little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but
Christmas!

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they
stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of
rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place
of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it
listed; or would have done so, but for the frost that held it
prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank
grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of
fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant,
like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was
lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

``What place is this?'' asked Scrooge.

``A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of
the earth,'' returned the Spirit. ``But they know me.
See!''

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they
advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and
stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing
fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their
children's children, and another generation beyond that, all
decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a
voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the
barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song : it had been a
very old song when he was a boy; and from time to
time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised
their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so
surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea?
To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of
the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears
were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled, and
roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and
fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so
from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild
year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of
sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds
-- born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the
water -- rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the light had made a
fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone
wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining
their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one
of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred
with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be:
struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea
-- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman
at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who
had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;
but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or
had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his
companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward
hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another
on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared
to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those
he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted
to remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to
move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss,
whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great
surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty
laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise
it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a bright, dry,
gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side,
and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!

``Ha, ha!'' laughed Scrooge's nephew. ``Ha, ha, ha!''

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man
more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is,
I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll
cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that
while there is infection in disease and sorrow,
there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as
laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this
way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face
into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by
marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled
friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

``Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!''

``He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!'' cried
Scrooge's nephew. ``He believed it too!''

``More shame for him, Fred!'' said Scrooge's niece,
indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by
halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,
surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that
seemed made to be kissed -- as no doubt it was; all kinds
of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one
another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you
ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether
she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but
satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!

``He's a comical old fellow,'' said Scrooge's nephew,
``that's the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be.
However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have
nothing to say against him.''

``What of that, my dear!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``His
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He
don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the
satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha! -- that he is
ever going to benefit Us with it.''

``I have no patience with him,'' observed Scrooge's
niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies,
expressed the same opinion.

``Oh, I have!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``I am sorry for
him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by
his ill whims? Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his
head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with
us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a
dinner.''

``Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,''
interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and
they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because
they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table,
were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

``Well! I'm very glad to hear it,'' said Scrooge's
nephew,
``because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers.
What do you say, Topper?''

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's
sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched
outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.
Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with the
lace tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed.

``Do go on, Fred,'' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her
hands.
``He never finishes what he begins to say. He is such a
ridiculous fellow!''

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was
impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister
tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was
unanimously followed.

``I was only going to say,'' said Scrooge's nephew,
``that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not
making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some
pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he
loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own
thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty
chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year,
whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at
Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it
-- I defy him -- if he finds me going there, in good
temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you?
If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty
pounds, that's something; and I think I shook him
yesterday.''

It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking
Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and
not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at
any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the
bottle joyously.

After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical
family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or
Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl
away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large
veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it.
Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played among
other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might
learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to
the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he
had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this
strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown
him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought
that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might
have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness
with his own hands, without resorting to the
sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a
while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children
sometimes, and never better than at at Christmas, when its
mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a
game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no more
believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in
his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him
and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present
knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace
tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature.
Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping
against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains,
wherever she went, there went he. He always knew where the
plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had
fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he
would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize
you, which would have been an affront to your understanding,
and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the
plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it
really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite
of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past
him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then
his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to
know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her
head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain
about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her
opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they
were so very confidential together, behind the curtains.

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in
a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind
her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to
admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was
very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her
sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper
could have told you. There might have been twenty people
there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge;
for, wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was
going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he
sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and vey often
guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best
Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper
than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and
looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to
be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the
Spirit said could not be done.

``Here is a new game,'' said Scrooge. ``One half hour,
Spirit, only one!''

It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had
to think of something, and the rest must find out
what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the
case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was
exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a
live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked
sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets,
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,
and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a
tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh
question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh
roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was
obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump
sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

``I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know
what it is!''

``What is it?'' cried Fred.

``It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!''

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to ``Is it a
bear?'' ought to have been ``Yes;'' inasmuch as an answer
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts
from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that
way.

``He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,'' said
Fred, ``and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment;
and I say, ``Uncle Scrooge!''''

``Well! Uncle Scrooge.'' they cried.

``A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man,
whatever he is!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``He wouldn't take
it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle
Scrooge!''

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of
heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in
return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost
had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the
breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and
he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside
sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they
were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in
their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse,
hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in
his little brief authority had not made fast the door and
barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge
his precepts.

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared
to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.
It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in
his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge
had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they
left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the
Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he
noticed that its hair was grey.

``Are spirits' lives so short?'' asked Scrooge.

``My life upon this globe, is very brief,'' replied the
Ghost.
``It ends to-night.''

``To-night!'' cried Scrooge.

``To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing
near.''

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at
that moment.

``Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,'' said
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, ``but I see
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!''

``It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,''
was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. ``Look here.''

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

``Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!'' exclaimed
the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,
wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful
youth should have filled their features out, and touched them
with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that
of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into
shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked,
and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no
perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries
of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in
this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the
words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of
such enormous magnitude.

``Spirit! are they yours?'' Scrooge could say no more.

``They are Man's,'' said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. ``And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for
on his brow I see that written which is Doom,
unless the writing be erased. Deny it!'' cried the Spirit,
stretching out its hand towards the city. ``Slander those who
tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it
worse! And bide the end!''

``Have they no refuge or resource?'' cried Scrooge.

``Are there no prisons?'' said the Spirit, turning on him
for the last time with his own words. ``Are there no
workhouses?''

The bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As
the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction
of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn
Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the
ground, towards him.